Friday, October 10, 2014

I promised myself I wasn’t going to blog about Franklin
Foer’s New Republic piece on how Amazon is an evil monopoly and must be stopped
and we’re all enslaving ourselves by shopping there blah blah blah. None of it is
remotely new or original or even coherent, and at some point I get tired of pointing
out the same deficiencies in these clone articles. But there was one line of bullshit
so breathtaking I just had to call it out.

Look, if Foer wants to claim Amazon is a “monopoly,” that’s just
routine
thoughtlessness, akin to a child being irrationally afraid
of the bogeyman. But then he goes on to make a claim that can only be the product
of shocking ignorance or brazen deceit:

That term [monopoly] doesn’t get tossed around
much these days, but it should.

Holy shit, “Amazon
is a monopoly” doesn’t get tossed around much these days?! Did Foer even read the
George Packer
piece he cites in his own article, in which Packer repeatedly plays the “Amazon
is a monopoly!” fear card? Has he ever heard of the “Authors Guild” or “Authors
United,” each of which has repeatedly, explicitly, accused Amazon of being a monopoly?
Has he read David
Streitfeld in the New York Times, or Laura Miller in Salon? I’ve seen countless
posts with titles like, Amazon: Malignant
Monopoly or Just Plain Evil? I’ve seen op-eds in the New York Times and the
Wall Street Journal, all peddling the same tired, tendentious fear-mongering line
about Amazon being a monopoly. Seriously, just Google “Amazon Hachette Monopoly”
and see what you come up with.

I see three general
possible explanations for Foer’s remarkably inaccurate claim.

1.Foer is embarrassingly ignorant of the subject
he’s trying to cover. He doesn’t read the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal;
he’s never heard of the Authors Guild or Authors United; the blogosphere exists only in some sort of inaccessible parallel dimension; he’s failed to do even the most
elementary online research… he just doesn’t have a clue regarding what he’s
writing about.

2.Foer is aware of how hoary the “Amazon is a monopoly”
meme has become and wants to repeat it, but doesn’t want to admit he has nothing
new to say. So he pretends he’s the first person to be possessed of this refreshingly
original argument.

3.Foer is aware of how hoary the “Amazon is a monopoly”
meme has become, but believes no other activist, not even the Authors Guild or Authors
United or the New York Times David
Streitfeld, has been sufficiently alarmist about how close The Amazon Monopoly Is To Enslaving Us All (look at the first sentence of the article: “let us kneel
down before” Amazon). So when he says, more or less, “No one else is talking about
this,” he really believes it, because he believes no one else is adequately conveying
just how terrifying it all is.

4.Foer knows perfectly well that “Amazon is a monopoly”
is about as ubiquitous a meme today as “Obama’s birth certificate was faked and
he is a Secret Marxist Muslim Socialist” was just recently. But he also knows you
can lend an air of false gravitas to bogus claims and conspiracy theories by implying
the mainstream media is too cowed to Speak The Truth, while you are doing something
bold, daring, and even dangerous by comparison.

I try to subscribe
to the notion that we should never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained
by stupidity. But really, is it possible to write a 3000-word article—with references
to articles that themselves claim Amazon is a monopoly—and genuinely believe “the
term monopoly doesn’t get tossed around much these days”? I’d like to believe that
Foer is just ignorant, and that the correct explanation is #1. But… wow. That’s
pretty damn ignorant.

All right, what
the hell, we’ve come this far. Just a few more thoughts on the rest of the article,
though I don’t know why I’m spending the time, because anyone who claims no one
else is accusing Amazon of being a monopoly has already disqualified himself from
being taken seriously.

Sure, Barnes and Noble and other chains have
long charged fees for shelf placement, but Amazon has invented a steroidal version
of that old practice.

Let me translate
that: “Amazon offers more value than B&N did, so charges more for it.”

In other
breaking news: Janet Evanovich charges her publisher more for her books than I
charge mine because she sells more copies, and she is therefore a monopoly.
Somebody, get the government to break up Janet Evanovich so I can compete!

(I’ll have
more to say below about the reactionary tendency to blame Amazon for the very
behavior incumbents like B&N have long behaved in and continue to behave
in.)

The New York Times has reported that Amazon
apparently wants to increase its cut of each e-book it sells, from 30 percent to
50…

Somehow, Foer
left out “but of course, no one really knows. And even if we did know, it would be incoherent
to discuss hypothetical percentages if we don’t also have information about wholesale
and retail prices.”

Random House joined Penguin to form a mega-house,
which controls 25 percent of the book business…

A “mega-house”?
That’s bad, right? Because now “the culture will suffer the inevitable
consequences of monopoly—less variety of products”?

Hmm, apparently
not. The New York “Big Five” cartel magically ensures variety. While the
company that invented Kindle Direct Publishing, enabling all authors to publish
whatever they want, is killing variety. Who knew?

This upfront money [the advance] is the economic
pillar on which quality books rest, the great bulwark against dilettantism…

Indeed, every
first-time novel—pretty much by definition written without an advance or even a
realistic hope of legacy publication—was written by a “dilettante.” Good to
know. Also good to know that authors don’t write quality books—the advances do that!

This is a
classic case of one of the logical fallacies I find most interesting among
people fearful of change: the tendency to conflate an important function (authors
making money from their work) with the traditional means by which that function
has been fulfilled (the advance). I can’t believe I’m still having to repeat this to
the Foers of the world, but… the advance is one
way by which authors have been compensated. It doesn’t follow, either logically
or empirically, that it is the only
way.

But no bank or investor in its right mind
would extend that kind of credit to an author, save perhaps Stephen King.

Again, could
somebody help me understand how all those first books get written? No advance,
no credit, and yet…

And “no bank”
would extend “that kind of credit”? Does Foer realize he’s talking about an average
of $5000? No bank? Really? And “no investor”? Hmm, well, if only someone would invent
a modern, web-based way of raising capital. Where someone could explain the project,
solicit investors… and maybe they could name it, I don’t know, “Kickstarter,” something
like that.

Or if only
someone would invent a means of reaching readers that didn’t require
gatekeepers and advances of credit in the unreachable average amount of $5000.
Something that would enable authors to publish themselves. We could even call
it… self-publishing!

Amazon might decide that it can only generate
enough revenue by further transforming the e-book market—and it might try to drive
sales by deflating Salman Rushdie and Jennifer Egan novels to the price of a Diet
Coke.

Yep. Or it might
try to drive sales by putting all its marketing muscle behind Snooki and 50 Shades
of Grey.

Oh wait, someone
else is already doing that. The guardians of rich literary culture, the
bulwarks against dilettantism, the guarantors of a greater variety of quality
books, etc.

But the
tendentiousness in Foer’s argument isn’t even what’s most interesting about it.
What’s implicit is even more so: that it would actually be bad if more people could afford to buy books by Salman Rushdie and
Jennifer Egan. How is this view any different from the arguments that must have
been made against the Vulgate Bible, or the Gutenburg printing press? “Tsk,
isn’t this just going to make reading more accessible to the unwashed masses?”

If you
haven’t read it already, I can’t recommend highly enough this
article by Clay Shirky about the aristocratic, elitist, narcissistic
worldview always inherent in the minds of people like Foer.

Or [Amazon] can continue to prod the publishing
houses to change their models, until they submit.

Or even until
they reform,
perhaps by offering authors a more equitable digital split, and paying authors
more often than twice a year, and permitting publication terms shorter than
“forever,” and dropping the draconian rights lock-ups from their contracts, and
by finding ways to give readers greater choice and access and lower prices, and
all
the other things they could do if they were interested more in competing
and less in complaining.

Either way, the culture will suffer the inevitable
consequences of monopoly—less variety of products and lower quality of the remaining
ones.

To paraphrase
David Gaughran, this would be a really interesting (and possibly even accurate)
point if no one had ever invented digital books and self-publishing.

As for the
notion that readers are so untermenschen
that they can’t determine for themselves what constitutes a “quality” book,
again, you’ve got to read that
Clay Shirky article.

This is depressing enough to ponder when
it comes to the fate of lawn mower blades.

Not nearly as
depressing as reading the same recycled, inaccurate, thought-free memes year
after year after year.

In confronting what to do about Amazon, first
we have to realize our own complicity.

Well, no, we
don’t. First we have to read all the good free advice people like Hugh Howey and
Joe
Konrath have offered publishers, and ask why it’s all been ignored in favor
of collusion and non-stop whining.

We’ve all been seduced by the
deep discounts, the monthly automatic diaper delivery, the free Prime movies,
the gift wrapping, the free two-day shipping, the ability to buy shoes or books
or pinto beans or a toilet all from the same place. But
it has gone beyond seduction, really. We expect these kinds of conveniences now,
as if they were birthrights.

Um, okay, I
guess, but couldn’t you can say the same about antibiotics and flush toilets and
ice cream straight from the freezer? Why isn’t Foer up in arms that people just
expect they can drive to the
supermarket for fresh milk, damn it, rather than having to get up in the cold
and dark at 4:00 a.m. to milk their own cow?

I could leave
that as a rhetorical question, but it isn’t really. There’s an answer. Which
is: people like Foer are afraid of change. If Foer had been born in a different
generation, he would have written similar screeds inveighing against the
horrors of the cotton gin, the automobile, the telephone, etc. Foer’s mentality
is always inherent in a percentage of the population; it just expresses itself
slightly differently depending on what happens to be the latest devil of
progress that’s poised to End Civilization And All That Is Good.

But while that meritocratic theory might
be true enough for a search engine or social media site, Amazon is different.

Oh, yes. Every
new change that terrifies people inherently afraid of change is different. Every
single one, throughout history. I’m serious: name a single significant social
or technological change ever, anywhere, that wasn’t accompanied by Luddites and
other alarmists declaring, “Yes, but this one is DIFFERENT.”

True! Which is
why the New York “Big Five” has long been such a boiling cauldron of innovation.

Regarding the
long section on how government intervention helped IBM and Microsoft, and allowed
Google to grow… actually, it was my novels that helped all these companies. The
third was published in 2004, and if you’ll check the timeline, you’ll see that Google’s
stock price is built on my publication dates. QED.

Still, if we don’t engage the new reality
of monopoly with the spirit of argumentation and experimentation that carried Brandeis,
we’ll drift toward an unsustainable future, where one company holds intolerable
economic and cultural sway.

How can someone
write something like that… and not be referring to the New York “Big Five”?

Another seeming rhetorical question that actually
has an answer. People who are fearful of change correspondingly worship the
status quo—because the status quo, by definition, doesn’t change. It doesn’t
matter whether the status quo is good or bad; what matters is just that it represents the absence of change, and
therefore must be supported. So even though all the bad things reactionaries
like Foer fear from Amazon in the future—too much power, too little variety,
too little innovation—already exist courtesy of the New York “Big Five” cartel,
Foer is as happy with the present as he is fearful of the future. Because if
there’s one thing the Big Five has always stood for, it’s keeping things
exactly the way they are. And if you’re possessed of a sufficiently reactionary
personality, there’s no better narcotic than that.

25 comments:

None of it is remotely new or original or even coherent, and at some point I get tired of pointing out the same deficiencies in these clone articles.

Please don't stop. It is a typical tactic of the intellectually deficient mobs to wear down opposition by repeating the same lie over and over again, until it is the only "truth" being told and the public will then believe it without question.

We, the fact seeking public, need voices like yours to keep shouting from the roof tops, or blogs, that this kind of feces is not truth.

There’s one thing the Big Five has always stood for, it’s keeping things exactly the way they are, barring the gates to new authors and if they allow entrance- stealing all their profits. The war between Hachette/Amazon only hurst new authors, not established authors like James Patterson, Doug Preston, others who have made a ton of money and are now on their way out. Brick & mortar book chains have gone the way of the dodo as everything moves online. Hachette and remaining traditional publishers need to adapt or die. Amazon no longer big kid on the block with Ali Baba who is now getting into the online publishing game. Publishing online is like trying to find a minnow in a vast ocean but at least it offers new authors, non agent represented authors a shot at publishing where traditional publishers have slammed their doors to anyone but established authors like Patterson, Preston etc.

We’ve all been seduced by the deep discounts, the monthly automatic diaper delivery, the free Prime movies, the gift wrapping, the free two-day shipping, the ability to buy shoes or books or pinto beans or a toilet all from the same place.

The only thing above I have is "deep discounts in books". Among other things because books are, by and large, way cheaper in the US. And yet, and even though packaging isn't as good as it was, nor is delivery... I buy amazon. Why? Because when Andromeda books had the snail mail catalog it had, delivered the way it did... amazon was already a click away. And Andromeda was good, relatively. [*]

Gimme something equivalent, and I'll go for it. Play.com was... for a while. Bookdepo... became amazon. Why wasn't it bought by WHSmith (it was British, after all). Or those SOBs at Penguin.[+] Or MS, Target...

How can someone write something like that… and not be referring to the New York “Big Five”?

He lives in DC. QED.

Take care.

[*] UK SF bookstore.[+] The guys who published 'No easy day' can't call the moral card on me. No way, no how. And I could go on on other things, but that's a pretty known item.

To echo an above comment, is it entirely necessary to continue pointing out these fallacies? Probably not. Do I want you to stop? NEVER!

But, I do find myself continually wondering about something. I wrote a piece on Amazon as a monopoly 18 months ago, where I asked a question I'm still very much confused by today:

How can all of these people completely misunderstand what a monopoly actually is and how one operates? You frame it as one of ignorance and/or malice, but there is still a large pool of people that should/could be considered thoughtful who seem entirely unable to grasp the actual idea of a monopoly. Or the difference between a monopoly and a monopsony.

Pre-internet, if a TV studio didn't like a contract with Time Warner, there were no other options available to get that content to consumers. Likewise, cable companies colluded on territory rights, and in many areas, consumers only had one option for cable TV. Because of the fact that they controlled both sides, and because they provided constantly diminishing service quality in exchange for increased prices, cable companies were rightfully (or should have been) dubbed monopolies.

Publishers control the content and there's literally NOTHING forcing them to distribute through Amazon. There's also nothing forcing consumers to purchase through Amazon.

Plus, regardless of the fact that Amazon is in no way a monopoly, even if they were, these same people never comment on the fact that being a monopoly is not inherently bad for a free-market (as long as they don't lower quality and raise prices). In many cases, it can be an excellent driver of both standards and innovation.

So do you really think this is entirely ignorance or malice? Is everyone who screams this crap either completely uninformed or simply spewing self-interested propaganda? Fear obviously plays a large part too, but I can't wrap my head around why this is a continuing topic. Factually speaking, it's absurd.

The monopolization of Amazon by wannabe journalists is like crabgrass.

As a retired (thank the heavens!!) lawyer, it is inconceivable to me that the press has yet to figure out that a monopoly, in and of itself, is not illegal. Nor are monopolies necessarily controlled by Sherman.

The Sherman Antitrust makes some (BUT NOT ALL) monopoly behavior illegal. Under the Sherman Act monopoly power is considered the ability of a business to control a product price or to exclude a competitor from doing business within its product market or geographic market.

My wife wrote a book that came out in 2009. We know several authors who had "been published" in the traditional sense. The upside to working with a publisher just didn't exist.

Since we believed in her book, we invested in it by hiring an editor, a book designer, doing a significant print run, securing the ISBN stuff, and essentially setting ourselves up as publishers.

Instead of receiving an advance, we put out quite a bit of money to control future revenues and (hopefully) profits.

Amazon has been great. Sara's book is a steady seller, and she is paid by Amazon every month. She now sells more copies on Kindle than in paperback, but 70% of $9.99 is far better than what a publisher would cut her in on.

Add in Nook Press, Google Play, and iBooks, and her book has reached more people in more worldwide locations that could have been possible before Amazon shook things up.

And the best thing? She made back her investment in about a year. Since then, the mailbox money has been gravy.

The folks who write these articles must have a "master list" of terrify-words to work from. Monopoly, culture, the novel...there is probably a Central Office somewhere who checks their content for the proper use of the proper buzzwords.

Variety? Really? I mean, this debate has already wandered way beyond the bounds of reason, but claiming that traditional publishing will provide more variety than indy is just... insane. That's like saying Saks Fifth Avenue is better than Wal-Mart because Saks is cheaper.

Foer fails to mention that he has a book published by Hachette recently, and the entire situation there that would suggest he has a bias.

Barry, don't get too stressed. It's like reading Streitfeld. You can't respond exhaustively to every article, because you'd be spending hours a day doing it. I think you did a pretty good job discrediting Foer right off the bat.

Digital disruption has a proven history of creating siloed monopolies. Who's number two after Google? Who's number two after AirBnB? Who's number two after Uber?

You are right that Amazon is not a monolopy.

Yet.

But that does not mean we should not be concerned about how the power Amazon wields could one day corrupt. Because just as New York publishers have abused their power for decades, Amazon, with the same power, would in the end be no different.

First of all, @jens (above), "Because just as New York publishers have abused their power for decades, Amazon, with the same power, would in the end be no different."

That is one hell of an assumption. But perhaps you're just trolling, typing words to get clicks to your site, which you kindly posted for all to see. I pass.

Secondly, and more importantly,

Barry, I was hoping one of you fellas would take apart this stream of drivel (although the comments on the actual article are pretty enlightened ... well, some are).I never know who all listens to or actually believes bullshit like this. But when a person comes to me quoting it, I'm glad I have a couple of actual knowledge sources to point them toward.

I love that you point out the avg advance of $5k then mention Kickstarter. I raised $5k on Kickstarter last December and used it to professionally edit and illustrate and published my debut novel. Dilettantism averted?

I enjoyed his glowing section about Resale Price Maintenance agreements. I don't understand these people. I've seen folks throwing around terms like "restraint of trade" with respect to what Amazon's doing (or not) with Hachette published books. But agency type agreements are inherently a restraint of trade in an actual legal sense. The Supreme Court has said so. If he wants to quote early 20th century SCOTUS members, how about Justice Charles Evans Hughes from the majority decision in a 1911 case that ruled against one of those deals:

"The agreements are designed to maintain prices after the complainant has parted with the title to the articles, and to prevent competition among those who trade in them."

And my favorite (no obscure legalese here):

"That these agreements restrain trade is obvious."

If you're going to come at me with arguments that something must be done in an anti-trust enforcement sense, don't do it championing a strategy that's equally if not even more questionable that what you're alleging needs to be stopped.

This whole notion that manufacturers should get to dictate the price customers will pay to retailers with no recourse to change them is extraordinarily dangerous and stupid. I don't think these people have thought the implications of that through at all. It's far more terrifying than anything Amazon could realistically do. Do they think something like that, codified by government, would stay confined to the book industry? It flattens retail competition, effectively eliminating retailers over time. Service is great and all but when everybody has the same price, the path of least resistance wins out in the end. A huge part of our economy is retail. This would end up costing a ton of jobs and jack up prices on everything at the same time. These folks need to take their damn blinders off and realize there's an entire world out there that doesn't care about their problems. And we're not in a hurry to screw ourselves so Hachette can sell ebooks for a few dollars more.

"Digital disruption has a proven history of creating siloed monopolies. Who's number two after Google? Who's number two after AirBnB? Who's number two after Uber?"

No research needed; the answers are MSN/Bing, HomeAway/VRBO, and Lyft.

And, again, please enlighten us as to how a "siloed" monopoly like Google or AirBnB is somehow bad for consumers? There seems to be tremendous confusion between "monopoly" and innovator of disruptive market.

May I suggest you attack the argument, and not the person? You'll find it keeps the conversation a good deal more civil.

And here's the argument: Power corrupts. Always. Everyone. Everywhere. Amazon / America / the Catholic Church / Standard Oil are not angels who are somehow exempt from this law of human nature.

If Amazon had the same power as New York publishers, you can bet they would act in just a predatory a manner.

The current tension between Amazon and New York is a good thing; but when Amazon flattens the Big Five, well...something wicked this way comes.

@AugustWainwright

The existence of competitors does not signify competition. Any vertical without competition is bad for both consumers and providers. (Do a quick bing--I mean, a quick google--for how Uber treats its drivers.)

"If Amazon had the same power as New York publishers, you can bet they would act in just a predatory a manner."

It's hard to keep from attacking the person instead of the argument when the person makes such an ignorant blanket statement.

I'm glad that you believe that your view of Amazon is the correct one and that everyone else is wrong. I'm also glad that you are so convinced that you are correct that you aren't afraid to run around the internet writing it to anyone and everyone who might read it.

However, as you probably know, but refuse to admit (or maybe you've fooled yourself, I don't know, I'm guessing, based on your comment(s)), blanket statements are ignorant, foolish, and rarely (if ever) have any quantifiable proof within them.

"All pit bull dogs are vicious and like to bite little kids"

"All Africa-Americans are lazy/drug dealers/criminals/welfare queens"

"All persons from the south are inbred/hillbillies/bible-thumpers"

"All Mexicans work in landscaping/housekeeping"

I mean, I could go on, but I'm pretty sure that if you have an ounce of honesty within you, you'll admit that your statement was more than likely borne out of a snap emotional moment instead of something you truly believe to be factually and conclusively true.

(please tell me you don't truly believe what you wrote about Amazon, and if you do, please re-read what I've written to understand how foolishly ignorant blanket statements are)

Now, if you want people to attack the argument, come to the table with a real argument. "Amazon would be evil too!" is not an argument. It's what sheep repeatedly bleat to each other on the internet because they don't have a real argument (see Barry's post that we're commenting on to see a perfect example).

Second, "The existence of competitors does not signify competition. Any vertical without competition is bad for both consumers and providers. (Do a quick bing--I mean, a quick google--for how Uber treats its drivers.)" is ridiculously ridiculous (yes, I just said that).

I'm not sure how you can believe that Amazon has competitors but doesn't have actual competition. Please explain this without using Uber or any other example beyond Amazon and Amazon's competition.

But I'll make it easy for you:1. If I don't want to buy a product on Amazon, I can buy it at at least 10 other online stores, and unless it is a specialized item, I can buy it locally from at least 2-5 other stores.

2. See #1

3. See #2 then #1

4. Seriously. See #3, then #2, then #1.

5. Learn what a monopoly (and a monosopy) is before you make statements that paint Amazon as a monopoly.

6. Quick monopoly lesson: If Amazon shut all of its doors, all over the world, one hour from now, and no one on the planet could order a single item from them, would that mean the only retailer/distributor has closed up and the product(s) you are seeking cannot be purchased anywhere else in the world (or in your country/locality)?

Answer: If Amazon was to disappear into the nether one hour from now, you would still be able to buy everything you could have purchased prior to this event, EXCEPT Amazon-branded items.

So, NO, Amazon is not a monopoly, and no, Amazon is not a company that has no competition. Amazon has a ton of competition. You need to learn the difference between competition, and competitive edge

(Meaning: when a company competes and competes terribly, or doesn't understand its market, or doesn't invest profits to evolve the company to keep up with the evolution of the market, it does not make the "better" or "bigger" company a monopoly.

It also means people on the internet need to learn the definitions of the words they use to make foolish blanket statements in an attempt to argue a point.)

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Welcome

There are a lot of terrific blogs out there on the world of writing, but Heart of the Matter isn't one of them. HOTM primarily covers politics, language as it influences politics, and politics as an exercise in branding and marketing, with the occasional post on some miscellaneous subject that catches my attention.

HOTM has a comments section. Sounds simple enough, but as even a cursory glance at the comments of most political blogs will show, many people would benefit from some guidelines. Here are a few I hope will help.

1. The most important guideline when it comes to argument is the golden rule. If someone were addressing your point, what tone, what overall approach would you find persuasive and want her to use? Whatever that is, do it yourself. If you find this simple guideline difficult, I'll explain it slightly differently in #2.

2. Argue for persuasion, not masturbation. If you follow the golden rule above, it's because you're trying to persuade someone. If you instead choose sarcasm and other insults, you can't be trying to persuade (have you ever seen someone's opinion changed by an insult?). If you're not trying to persuade, what you're doing instead is stroking yourself. Now, stroking yourself is fine in private, but I think we can all agree it's a pretty pathetic to do so in public. So unless you like to come across as pathetic, argue to persuade.

3. Compared to the two above, this is just commentary, but: no one cares about your opinion (or mine, for that matter). It would be awesome to be so impressive that we could sway people to our way of thinking just by declaiming our thoughts, but probably most of us lack such gravitas. Luckily, there's something even better: evidence, logic, and argument. Think about it: when was the last time someone persuaded you of the rightness of his opinion just by declaring what it was? Probably it was the same time someone changed your mind with an insult, right? And like insults, naked declarations of opinion, because they can't persuade, are fundamentally masturbatory. And masturbation, again, is not a very polite thing to do on a blog.

Argue with others the way you'd like them to argue with you. Argue with intent to persuade. Argue with evidence and logic. That shouldn't be so hard, should it? Let's give it a try.